Reader advice on cameras....

I am in need of some advice and feedback on cameras and thought that my blog would provide the perfect venue to get reader comments. I bet there are lots of experienced photographers out there who know way more than me about cameras and could provide some insight for me.

I have been in the hunt for a new camera for a while and even though I almost made an impulse purchase one random Thursday night after being discouraged with my current Kodak camera, I was able to resist the tempation and have started doing more thorough research on cameras before purchasing a new one. I have a basic point and shoot camera right now which I purchased about two years ago but I feel like I've grown out of it and want something a little more professional which can take better quality photos.

I am not quite ready to make the leap to a DSLR and neither is my bank account with the $500 price tag for a pretty basic DSLR, so I figured a mid-range point and shoot around the $250 mark would do me just fine.

I was on the Future Shop website recently and I think I've narrowed it down to 4 contenders (or variations of the following):

Fujifilm Finepix                                                       

Olympus Digital Camera

Nikon Coolpix

Canon PowerShot

A bone of contention I have with all of these cameras above though is that they are all battery operated, meaning they take double AA batteries, instead of having a wall mount charger. At first I hated the idea of having to use batteries but the more I've thought  of having a battery operated camera, it isn't the worst thing, is it?! At least if you forget your camera cord or can't find it (like me usually!) you can at least go out and buy batteries wherever. And most of these cameras above come with re-chargable batteries anyway so it wouldn't be so bad.

I've also been reading some reviews on each camera and have found it hard to narrow it down to just one in particular. I do though, have soft spot for the Nikon Coolpix camera (in red) as it has received some rave reviews from people who own them and love them. I am open to hearing what readers think is the best camera so leave me a comment if you have time :)